14 DAY TRIAL // Google today announced Chrome 86, and the new browser is also available on mobile devices, obviously with a set of welcome improvements.
The search giant has focused a lot on security this time, and iPhones are now provided with password filling improvements and biometric authentication, with support for Face ID and Touch ID offered natively.
“We recently launched Touch-to-fill for passwords on Android to prevent phishing attacks. To improve security on iOS too, we’re introducing a biometric authentication step before auto-filling passwords. On iOS, you’ll now be able to authenticate using Face ID, Touch ID, or your phone passcode. Additionally, Chrome Password Manager allows you to autofill saved passwords into iOS apps or browsers if you enable Chrome autofill in Settings,” Google announced today.
Android devise are getting the Enhanced Safe Browsing mode that was originally launched on the desktop earlier this year. What this feature does is share data with Google Safe Browsing and analyze the websites that you load in real-time, essentially being able to determine if a potential link is a threat or not before you see the content.
More to come in Chrome 87
Starting with Chrome 86, this feature is available on Android devices too.
“When you turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing, Chrome can proactively protect you against phishing, malware, and other dangerous sites by sharing real-time data with Google’s Safe Browsing service. Among our users who have enabled checking websites and downloads in real-time, our predictive phishing protections see a roughly 20% drop in users typing their passwords into phishing sites,” the company says.
The search giant has also announced that Chrome 87 will come with even more security improvements for mobile devices. Safety Check, the feature that already debuted on the desktop, will go live on Android and iOS with the next version of Chrome and will help users determine if their passwords have been compromised following a security breach.